Online advertising has become a popular method by which advertisers can reach consumers. Online advertising provides opportunities for advertisers to target their advertisements to a particular audience in a highly targeted and valuable way. In many instances, website publishers and/or online advertising providers may identify a consumer and his or her activity during their visit to a website in order to provide advertisements targeted to a particular interest of a consumer, as inferred from that online browsing history. Traditionally, a consumer is identified across many websites through the use of user-specific identifiers, which may be facilitated by Internet cookies and/or through tracking images or pixels provided with a website.
Thus, online advertisements that are provided along with the content of a website can be targeted to a consumer based on the identified consumer and his or her interactions with web pages provided by one or more publishers. In order to generate revenue, a publisher that provides the advertisement on a web page may charge an advertiser each time a consumer views the advertisement (e.g., causing an “impression”) and/or interacts with (e.g., clicks on) the advertisement on the web page, thereby being directed to a website associated with the advertiser.
In order to provide highly relevant advertisements and/or content to consumers, publishers of websites and online advertising providers have traditionally relied on online user data. However, publishers and online advertisers have not been able to utilize a consumer's calling a telephone number of a business for products and/or services in order to provide highly relevant content and/or advertisements. Further, publishers and advertisers may not have a readily verifiable way of receiving telephone related information because the publishers and online advertisers traditionally have no knowledge of a telephone call to the business by a consumer. Additionally, businesses may not have an online presences, may desire to advertise on the online to its customers. A business may desire to use a consumer's identification online in order to provide an online advertisement that is targeted and/or re-target its current and/or previous customers, and/or to reconnect to customers who did not complete a transaction during a telephone call.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the above-referenced challenges, for example, by storing and sharing telephone call data between businesses and users who opt-in to such sharing, for use in performing targeted Internet advertising.